Are the armours really that good?

[Espinosa]

Hector used to be one of the two SS-rank characters with Takumi at one point, and Effie is also pretty high up there. Their advantages seem obvious - it's the ranged counter and doubling on counter in Hector's case, and preventing doubling while healthy for Effie, in addition to the obvious physical bulk of course. 

However, as long as I have a good sword user like Lucina or Lyn alive, I have no trouble dealing with Hectors whatsoever, and the other armours (who lack ranged counter) can be kited pretty relentless in many maps while you chip at them from 2-range in safe places or otherwise exploited. 

I've never once had a competent armour (well, I did use a 3-star Wendy for one reward so that I could unlock more orbs in higher ranks) that I could actually try out myself, but the biggest turn-off must be that 1-mov, which sounds like a nightmare. 2-mov is uncomfortable enough for navigation, but 1-mov just doesn't sound salvageable. I dunno if I could react to sudden changes in enemy movement in a demanding arena battle, let alone choose an armour as my defence team.

That's my theory though, and Hector/Effie are high up in the tier list. So how is it in reality?

[Kruggov]

Nope. It's just Hector and Effie. Armors would've been much better had they had had something like Pivot to help them move around (I imagine Inherit Skill will help with that Wings of Mercy Hector/Effie). Well, there's also "Hectorgeddon" which is reliant on Hector's Goad Armor stacking with itself, but I'm sure that's going to be patched out eventually. Not to mention getting 4 Hectors...

Maybe there's hope for "Drauggeddon" in sense that enemies will have a hard time scratching them with physical damage (51 Def at neutral with Ward Armor bonuses), but Linde/Nino/Tharja will still rip them apart.

So I guess... Armors suck again?

[Magical Glace]

Honestly, the one move more or less kills them in my eyes.

This makes them move at half the pace of a regular foot unit, and one third of the pace of a cavalry unit.  Compared to the main series, where they go 80% (4/5) of the pace of a regular foot unit when unpromoted or 83% (5/6) when promoted, it really stands out as bad.  

However, Hector and Effie also have the top stat totals in the game, which is what makes them so prominent in the arena.

[Ice Dragon]

Hector and Effie on an arena defense team are pretty much there to bump up your score with their high stat total and to force arena offense teams to run a counter. They are easily separated from the rest of the army, meaning the offense team has fewer enemy units to deal with at any given time, making the team easier for a prepared team to defeat. Honestly, I don't see a point to running either of them on a defense team unless you don't otherwise have the stat total necessary to get the top tier defense reward without them.

 

Because the AI prefers to rush your team, Hector and Effie work decently well on an arena offense team because you can turtle around them to avoid splitting your forces. Their low movement range, however, means you can't use them to leapfrog over your other units even with Dance and Sing. They also typically cannot pick and choose their encounters because they can't move in and out of enemy movement ranges as easily.

After spending the time to level up Draug, Gwendolyn, Sheena, and Hector for the March monthly mission, it's become painfully clear to me that I don't want to be running more than 2 armors on my team at once if I can't prepare for the enemy composition and positioning beforehand and can't be guaranteed an open map. Many maps have corridors where once you've picked the order your armors are passing through, it cannot be changed until you're all the way through (or half of your armors are dead).

On the other hand, running a single armor, namely Hector and his Distant Counter, with Azura or Olivia and a healer is a very viable strategy anywhere where you don't have a giant pile of swords breathing down your throat. Because 2 movement range is not enough to move around an opposing unit, armors can effectively wall even without a choke.

[Roflolxp54]

6 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

However, Hector and Effie also have the top stat totals in the game, which is what makes them so prominent in the arena.

Pretty much this. Whales often run something like 3 merged Hectors and (currently) Seliph (highest stat total out of the season bonus characters) in order to fight very strong opponents and get higher scores for higher ranks to get more feathers.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Roflolxp54

[Espinosa]

51 minutes ago, Roflolxp54 said:

Pretty much this. Whales often run something like 3 merged Hectors and (currently) Seliph (highest stat total out of the season bonus characters) in order to fight very strong opponents and get higher scores for higher ranks to get more feathers.

How much can you whale to merge 3 Hectors? I imagine it's just hacking. 

I also haven't found info on the FEH wiki on this, but how exactly does merging affect stats? Is there a rule which stats get increased?

[Roflolxp54]

5 minutes ago, Espinosa said:

How much can you whale to merge 3 Hectors? I imagine it's just hacking. 

I also haven't found info on the FEH wiki on this, but how exactly does merging affect stats? Is there a rule which stats get increased?

1 merge gives the unit +1 to 2 random stats, assuming that the rarity of the units being merged matches. The max is +4 to each stat after 10 merges.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Roflolxp54

[Rezzy]

Hector's the only great one, and that's primarily due to his 1-2 counter range helping to alleviate his 1 movement.

Effie is okay, due mainly to Wary Fighter, but if you have a Green, or even Blue Mage they can kite her easily.  It's only if you're very Red centric that you'll really have trouble with her.

[Ice Dragon]

27 minutes ago, Espinosa said:

I also haven't found info on the FEH wiki on this, but how exactly does merging affect stats? Is there a rule which stats get increased?

Each merge gives +1 to two different stats.

The order in which stats are applied is fixed based on the character.

No stat will receive a +2 until all stats have reached +1. Same with +3 and +4. This means that characters receive their first +2 on the third merge, their first +3 on the sixth merge, and their first +4 on the eighth merge.

At 5 merges, a character has exactly +2 to all stats. At 10 merges, a character has exactly +4 to all stats.

The order in which stats are applied is the same between the first 5 merges as it is between the last 5 merges. This means that if the character gains +1 Spd and +1 Def on merge 2, they will gain +1 Spd and +1 Def on merge 7.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Ice Dragon

[dragonlordsd]

Hector is insane because Distant Counter + Armands means there are only three or four units in the entire game that he can't kill on his own. Especially if you trigger pavise.

Effie isn't anything special, but her high stats bump your score up a lot.

That's really it for armors so far.

With both of them, it's not so much what you can do to them, but what they can accomplish for you.

A team with Hector and Effie on it will score much higher, giving you a much better rank, and getting you more hero feathers.

Hector in particular can also be used to break a lot of maps with his absurd tankiness. F. Robin's hard map, for example. He can tank all five and pretty much kills all of them.

Edited March 6, 2017 by dragonlordsd

[MaskedAmpharos]

Pretty much just echoing the others: everyone includes armors in Arena more for the bump to their stats (and thus their score and overall rank) than the units themselves. I have an Effie but tbh the 1-move really bothers me, and if I didn't need her to rank in the top 5k I'd use someone else. 

Hell I'm considering making my next 5* either Sharena or F!Corrin and using one of those as my blue tank instead. Less optimal than Effie pointwise, but I think I'd have more fun with the team.

[Alpha Wolves]

Oh my god, all of this just reminded me how STUPID skill inheritition ia goong to be. Hector with Pivot, RIP!

@MaskedAmpharos Serena if you're going Buff teams with -blade spells, F!Corrin otherwise.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Alpha Wolves

[Rezzy]

5 hours ago, dragonlordsd said:

 

Hector in particular can also be used to break a lot of maps with his absurd tankiness. F. Robin's hard map, for example. He can tank all five and pretty much kills all of them.

Can Hector tank all of them?  He's got tons of HP, but his Res isn't anything special, and aren't there 3-4 Mages on that map?

[Alpha Wolves]

54 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

Can Hector tank all of them?  He's got tons of HP, but his Res isn't anything special, and aren't there 3-4 Mages on that map?

I think there was only 1 Red Mage, who was out of range and could be aggroed by someone else. All others had a penalty attacking, and you could buff his res to make it more noticeable. He wasn't Tiki(A), but he certainly hurt everyone in the group.

[Armend]

Problem with 2+ hectors on defense is that he will always take a big chunk of hp from some characters. If you only run 1 decent sword user, there is a chance he cannot tank hector anymore, which result in losing a character. That's game over if you chase a perfect streak.

 

 

[MaskedAmpharos]

Yeah I've started running two sword users on offense because I've started running into teams with 2 Hectors. Ryoma can kill one Hector just fine, but after that his HP is generally too low to tank a second one.

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

Yeah I've started running two sword users on offense because I've started running into teams with 2 Hectors. Ryoma can kill one Hector just fine, but after that his HP is generally too low to tank a second one.

Ryoma can always tank 2 hits from Hector without dying. When the opponent has 2 Hectors, always let Hector initiate combat so that he cannot double attack. Land the finishing blow with a ranged character if you notice Pavise will prevent the next melee blow from killing him.

[MaskedAmpharos]

1 minute ago, Ice Dragon said:

Ryoma can always tank 2 hits from Hector without dying. When the opponent has 2 Hectors, always let Hector initiate combat so that he cannot double attack. Land the finishing blow with a ranged character if you notice Pavise will prevent the next melee blow from killing him.

Yeah I generally let Hector initiate. My Ryoma's -Def though, so that's probably why his survival's a bit shaky against two Hectors sometimes (admittedly I didn't bother to calculate exactly so for all I know I would have lived the second Hector with a small amount of HP but was too scared to take the chance)

[Alpha Wolves]

Eldigan normally allows me to 1rko Hector without worry, though sometimes survives with 1 HP. and has enough HP to fight another as long as they aren't Blue.